Getting into the Guinness Book of World Records isn’t just about who can eat the most hotdogs or fly a paper airplane the highest. Sometimes it involves technological breakthroughs with huge potential. Guinness has handed DARPA’s Terahertz Electronics program the award for the fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit. Developed by Northrop Grumman, the Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit (TMIC) is a ten-stage common-source amplifier that cranks speeds of one terahertz (10^12 Hz), or one trillion cycles per second.

MIT researchers have developed a circuit design that could make simple superconducting devices with zero electrical resistance much cheaper to manufacture, and which would be 50 to 100 times as energy efficient as today’s chips. Even though the circuits’ speed probably would not top that of today’s chips, they could solve the problem of reading out the results of calculations performed with Josephson junctions.

Its been two years since the last full redesign for the iphone, and we couldn’t be more anxious to see the new upgrade up close. So we sent our Teardown team all the way to Melbourne, Australia to get the first look inside the new iPhone 6.

Nobody likes having blood samples drawn. What’s more, such samples typically have to be analyzed in a lab before they’re able to tell us anything. But now scientists at the University of Cincinnati and the US Air Force Research Laboratory are developing a system in which a Band-Aid-like skin patch is able to gather and transmit medical data in almost real time, by analyzing the patient’s sweat … and you just need a smartphone to read it, no poking or prodding required.

Researchers at Tohoku University in Japan have developed a new low-cost flat panel light source that could pioneer a new generation of brighter, cheaper and greener lighting devices to rival LEDs. The device uses arrays of highly conductive carbon nanotubes to deliver evenly-distributed illumination with high efficiency and a power consumption as low as 0.1 Watts – about 100 times lower than that of light-emitting diodes.

Texas Instruments announced plans for the Regency TR-1, the first transistor radio to be commercially sold, on October 18, 1954.

The move was a major one in tech history that would help propel transistors into mainstream use and also give new definition to portable electronics.

TI was producing germanium transistors at the time, but the market had been slow to respond, comfortable with vacuum tubes.

However, the use of transistors instead of vacuum tubes as the amplifier elements meant that the device was much smaller, required less power to operate, and was more shock-resistant. Transistor use also allowed “instant-on” operation because there were no filaments to heat up.

Researchers from Columbia University and the Georgia Institute of Technology are laying claim to having observed piezoelectricity in an atomically thin material for the first time. The effect was demonstrated in the world’s thinnest electric generator made from a two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) material, which had previously been predicted to exhibit such properties.

Recent advances of Li-Ion battery technology could be the kick start the faltering electric vehicle market needs for it to go main stream. As well as the fast charge time the new battery can be cycled more than 10,000 times and has a lifespan of 20 years.

The work carried out at NTU Singapore replaces the traditional graphite anode with one made from titanium dioxide, an abundant, cheap and safe material found in soil. It is commonly used as a food additive and in sunscreen lotions. Before the material can be used it is converted into fine nanotubes which allows faster chemical reactions in the cell giving it super fast recharge times.

There have been numerous cases of lithium-ion batteries catching fire in everything from mobile phones and laptops to cars and airplanes. While the odds of this occurring are low, the fact that hundreds of millions of lithium-ion batteries are produced and sold every year means the risk is still very real. Researchers at Stanford University have now developed a “smart” lithium-ion battery that would provide users with a warning if it is overheating and likely to burst into flames.

“Smart” lithium-ion battery would warn users if it is going to ignite - [Link]